I think whoever first suggested that men are from another planet is a genius. After the past month dealing with all my relationship drama, it has become crystal clear to me that men are not like us; they're not normal beings. They have a completely different wiring system than women that I can only imagine is due to extraterrestrial programming. It has been, and always will be, a mystery to me how men and women are able to get along so peacefully and love each other despite so many differences in thinking and behavior. How we are able to make it work as a human kind is beyond me.
A few years ago in my first Psychology class my professor explained the differences between the male and female brain in a way that really stuck with me. He said that men's brains are like waffles and women's brains are like spaghetti. This food analogy confused me at first, but after he explained it to us, everything clicked and I had one of those "Now everything makes sense" moments. Men's brains work like waffles because they have several separate compartments that are organized and methodological. Because of this, men can only focus on one thought or concept at a time, and have to completely switch gears into another compartment if they need to shift their focus to something else. On the flip side, women's brains work like spaghetti because they are a huge mess of intertwining and collaborating thoughts and ideas. Women can multitask and every thought, or piece of spaghetti, is connected to another. This professor certainly got it right. Every time I find myself struggling to understand the male race I think back to this analogy and remember that men have waffle brains and they do not think the same way women do. As frustrating as this is, it's a universal and unchangeable fact.
To begin with a positive, Fred and I are still on the same page as far as relationship status goes. I think. Neither of us want to be in an official relationship since I will be in Europe for the first part of the summer and then he's leaving to go abroad in September. We had a great, productive discussion a few weeks ago to clarify this, and it was established that if when he gets back from abroad we still have feelings for each other, then we can do this thing for real. But in the mean time we decided it would be a bad idea to engage in a romantic relationship before having to partake in a long distance relationship, and we thought it would be a better idea to wait until he gets back to reevaluate the relationship in the winter. However, recently it seems like every day is either a hit or miss with this man. Some days he will be over-the-top romantic and lovey, and other days he is nowhere to be found and will be almost impossible to reach. This is the point where I have to calmly remind myself that men are, in fact, a different species and that patience is key when dealing with them.
Because of this disconnect and desire to keep a casual dating relationship, we are still keeping our physical relationship at bay as to not amplify our feelings. We have had mutual romantic feelings for each other for the past three months and in this amount of time we have kissed once. Don't get me wrong, it was great, but it would probably be more beneficial to hold off on further physical activity until after he gets home from abroad and a set definition and understanding is placed on our relationship. I especially believe this is important since he has been so wishy-washy and unpredictable lately. The last thing I want is to continue pursuing a physical relationship with someone I cannot figure out emotionally.
The other day in my Psychology of Couples class I watched a presentation on how important it is to be friends with your partner before and during a relationship. This definitely reminded me of my relationship with Fred since we were friends for three years before our feelings started to develop. For this reason, I believe a future romantic relationship with Fred would be successful because we know each other well enough and are close enough friends to be able to talk and work through any and all of our problems (as long as he becomes more stable with his actions and how he behaves with me). And since Fred happens to sit next to me in this class, I was wondering if he was thinking the same thing about me.
I haven't really been able to figure out what my next course of action will be. There are so many options and I am weighing all of them to determine which one will produce the most successful outcome. Possible options include: continuing the casual dating relationship for the next two weeks of school and then seeing what happens over the summer, calling it off since he's being so unpredictable and unstable lately and I don't have the time or will to put up with the drama, or putting myself at a safe distance from him emotionally to allow myself more time and space to think about what I want. All are viable options, I'm just not sure which direction I want to go, which is weird since usually I'm pretty decisive about what I want. Unfortunately at this point, if I decide to terminate our relationship, it would be nearly impossible for us to return to being just friends, since so much has happened in the past few months and I believe we have passed the point of no return. Because of this, I am discouraged from ending the relationship and losing one of my best friends in the process.
It's funny because every session of Couple's Psychology has given me a new piece of advice or insight as to how to handle this relationship. Specifically, the class period about being friends with your partner and how friendships can develop into relationships, as well as the class about long distance relationships and the amount of satisfaction that comes from them. These are two aspects of my relationship with Fred that create our two main problems. They are not easy to deal with, but talking about them in class has definitely made it easier to handle. I think Dr. Markman needs to dedicate a class period to talk about how men and women are different species, and explain to us how a brain of spaghetti can effectively communicate with a brain of waffles, because I am still struggling with effectively communicating with this guy on a daily basis.
"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."
-John Lennon
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